I'm in Love with James Potter
by isthatacorner
Summary: "You're in love with James Potter." "I am not, what an absurd thing to say!" Um. Wait a minute, who did say that? I wrote this story forever ago and never noticed that all of this time I had it listed under Lily LUNA P not Lily Evans P. Silly Isa. Enjoy!


"You're in love with James Potter."

"I am not, what an absurd thing to say!" Um. Wait a minute, who _did_ say that? I looked to my left, to my back, to the right. No one but a bunch of rowdy first years, drunk on magic. Or drunk on fire whisky. Definitely drunk, no sober person would willingly act the way that they were acting. Except for possibly Sirius Black and James Potter, and even they have grown up this past year. In spite of being 17 those two still act a, a majority of the time as if they are 12.

"Lily Evans, you are in _love_ with James Potter." Ok, that does it. I do not care how much of an idiot I'm going to look; you can't just walk up behind a person and tell them that they are in love with James Potter for goodness sakes! Spinning around, my hands out stretched before me, I do feel like an idiot. A huge idiot, even the first years have stopped doing whatever the heck it is that they are doing to stare at me, twirling in circles grasping at the air around me. I don't know a spell to make a person underneath an Invisibility cloak become visible again. I suppose I could _accio_ for it, but I don't think you can do that for something that you aren't even positive is in the room. When the room burst into loud guffaws I, with as much of my missing dignity as possible, stand and quickly leave the room. I have to study and I highly doubt that I would be able to accomplish that with some prankster prat whispering lies into my ears. I am not now, nor have I ever been in love with stupid James Potter.

"You love him. Stop lying to yourself. Just give in. He loves you too, you know." With this hushed whispering, I abandon dignity as well as my school bag and flee down the hall, down the moving staircase, across the Great Hall, through the double doors and across the lawn. I am not lying to myself. That is the one thing that I absolutely do not believe in. Lying to yourself. If you feel the need to lie to others…do it. But 100% truthfulness to you is an absolute must. Besides, why would I need to lie to myself? I have nothing to hi…

"Hey Lily, are you okay?" It's the man himself. With his stupid hair and looking all concerned…

"What do _y_ouwant, four eyes?" I turn and bellow it at him. The name seems to call him up short. His stop is so sudden that he nearly trips over his own feet; the innate grace that Quidditch has given him is the only thing that seems to stop the momentum that otherwise would have sent him tumbling to the ground. He's standing so close that I can smell the licorice wand on his breath and see the tiny mole at the corner of his lip. Not that I'm looking at his mouth or anything. I'm just acknowledging how close he's standing to me. I try to shift subtly away from him, but when I move he moves even closer. The mole keeps winking at me. He's biting his lip and the concern has yet to leave his eyes.

"I want to know if you're alright. You left kind of suddenly. N.E.W.T's getting to you? Missy Deplave says that the nurse is stocked with a calming potion, and of course I have an in if you're after something equally calming but a lot less rule abiding." He winked at me. With his eye, not his mole.

"Why won't you leave me alone?"

"You're in love with James Potter, Lily, why won't you just tell him?" I whirl away from him, look frantically around me. We're by the lake, no other students are near by and the only way anyone could be out here with an invisibility cloak would be if they super glued it to themselves. The wind is outrageous.

"I am _not_! Who keeps saying that?" I stomp my foot and I feel tears building in my eyes. This nonsense has been going on all morning, and like James has oh so helpfully pointed out, the biggest test of our Hogwarts career is just around the corner and I should be studying, like I had been, but someone has been stalking me all morning. I am utterly exhausted.

"Saying what, seriously Lily, do I need to get the nurse or something?" I'm still circling, thrusting my hands about like a madwoman. There is that one spell. It makes you invisible or you're see through or you're camouflaged with your surroundings or something.

"You don't hear them, do you?" I rub distractedly at the tears that managed to escape and shrug out from underneath James' hands.

"Hear who?"

"I keep hearing this stupid voice telling me…." I break off. I can't tell him this. He'll try and say it's my subconscious or something.

"Telling you what?"

"Never mind. It's not important."

"It has the great Lily Evans hiding out, a week before N.E.W.T.'s, crying. Flipping out. It's important."

"Let's just skip it James."

"Just tell me, maybe I can help."

"Well, of _course_ you can help, James. Isn't that what this entire year has been about? Showing me that you can help? Mr. James Friggin' Potter. Mr. Fantastic! Hey ladies and gentleman, he's not just a Quidditch super star, he can do _anything_!."

"Whoa. Hey now." He took a step back his hands up, palms facing me. "I was under the impression that we were getting along this semester. United for the good of the school and all that?"

"It's just that, James, an impression! I didn't mean it! None of it! I was just pretending! I can't wait until this stupid year is over and I never have to see your stupid, smug, arrogant face again!" I couldn't stop myself. I didn't want to. I think that I may even enjoy crushing him like this. And, damn it all, why shouldn't I? He and his stupid friends have been torturing me all of this morning with their stupid stalkers, and ok, he's behaved semi-civilized all of this year but what about all of the ones that came before that, huh? "Why do you insist on hurting him like this? He loves you, Lily, and you love him too."

"I do not love you James Potter. So why don't you do us both a favor and get your stupid friends off of my back?" With that, I turn away from him.

"Not even I'm stupid enough to hope that you could love me. Not anymore. It's too late. I gave you my best shot. I tried everything that I could think. Everything that the boys could think of too. " I could feel his hot eyes boring into the skin at the nape of my neck. It made me uncomfortable, I couldn't stop squirming. "I love you Lily. I have for a really long time. When I was a boy, I didn't know how to say that to you in a way that would make you believe me. We're not kids anymore. There's a war going on out there, and the way that things are looking there's a chance that you and I and who knows how many others of our class mates are going to die. This isn't something I want to regret." And then I was being kissed by James Potter. One of his hands was in my hair, the other gripping the bottom edge of my white school blouse. His mouth, open, was slanted down over mine, his tongue lightly licking the contours of my mouth, poking and thrusting searching for the slightest of openings. And then, I was kissing him back. With a sigh my lips parted, my tongue came out to greet his. My eyes were closed and I couldn't get close enough to him. We were pressed together from knees to nose, and that wasn't close enough. My hands went up to tangle in his hair, so soft, to pull myself closer. I have wanted to touch his hair for years. When finally, the need to breathe put a damper on raging desire, he tore his mouth from mine and dotted kisses along my hair line, my nose, down the curve of my jaw to my neck.

"I'm in love with James Potter." His head rose slowly, the long, sharp point of his nose was digging into the flesh of my smaller nose. Our lips were less than a breath apart and I could feel the slight, warm vibration as he said, "What was that?" His eyes never left mine, and he was so close and he was holding me so tightly I could scarce breathe. I closed my eyes against the onslaught of emotions that were rioting around inside of me, and to shut out his brilliantly shining hope. I took a deep breath, held it, and on the sigh that I allowed to escape on the exhale, I whispered, "I'm in love with James Potter."

"When the heck did that happen?" I could feel his smile against the skin of my lips. I opened my eyes just in time to snap them shut again for another mind numbing kiss.

"You've got me." I shrugged helplessly in answer to his almost forgotten question.

"It's about bloody time."

Off in the shadows of the forbidden forest a cluster of girls stood. They were of varying heights, houses and ages. Their one commonality was a button that was attached to each of their robes. Around the edges of the button were the words: Marauders Mad Minxes, the James Potter division of the Marauder Fan Club, along with the start date and end date of the Marauders reign in Hogwarts. The center of the button was a picture of James taken during a Quidditch match. He was sitting atop his broom, focusing intensely on something just out of sight, and constantly buzzing around the confines of the smallish sized buttons.

"Are we sure we did the right thing?"

"Yes." The girl answered slowly, drawing the word into several syllables. "We want him to be happy, and she'll make him happy."

"Is she really in love with him?"

"I _think_ so."

"Who wouldn't be?"  
"He's James Potter!"

"All we did today was point out the amazing qualities that he has and pushed her in the right direction. It only took us a couple of hours. I think that she was on the verge of figuring it out herself. You saw the way that they have been together this year. We just didn't have time for her to figure it out on her own."

"Besides, even if she isn't or wasn't really in love with him, we've made her open to the possibility of being in love with him. I trust James to do the rest. And if he doesn't…well, he has all of us to choose from, doesn't he?" With that, all of the girls began to giggle, all the while their eyes, some teary, others happy, were trained on the newly formed couple on the lawn.


End file.
